Location of Sighting: Huntington Beach, California
Date of Sighting: December 2, 2015
Time of Sighting: 4 PM PST
View Video of Sun Dog (YouTube):
PHOTO OF OBJECT SEEN BY WITNESSES. THE OBJECT IS NOT THE SUN.
Description: The sun is to the left and not in the picture. It happened when I was getting off work a little bit after 4 PM. We looked to the left and we saw the sign on the left and to the right there was this big huge white bright light. This happened on December 2nd, 2015 around a little after 4 PM in Huntington Beach, California. I have a coworker that was a witness to and I also have the short video of it too as well. My coworker also got a video.
Note: The witnesses saw the object and the sun is not in the photo. Further examination has revealed that the object is quite likely a “sun dog” which forms as the result of the reflection of the sun’s rays off of ice crystals in the high clouds in the photo. Normally sun dogs are only seen in high latitudes, but can form in other areas due to reflection of the rays off of high clouds.
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I have seen that several times and on TWO of the times a huge light came out of it and moved across the street in front of me and several other cars! It was pretty scary. I thought it was the end of the world.
It is definitely a parhelia. I see them quite often when thin cirrus clouds are near the sun. Often they appear in pairs to the left & right of the sun at 22 degrees distance.
This looks a lot like a “sun dog”.
Yes, I agree with the commenter. The light is likely a sun dog due to reflection of sun rays off of the ice crystals of the high clouds.